TEoD: Chapter 43: The Enemy of My Enemy

Fresh from kicking Isis to the curb, Murphy feels a renewed energy to get work done.

Does that mean throwing himself into teaching his one class? Nope.

Does it mean setting off with Levi and maybe Pastor Bob or Summer to actually FIND the…whatever the stupid shit is that I’ve by now totally forgotten that had something to do with the Ark or something.

Nope, he’s just going to go to the beach and stalk Methuselah again.

This time there would be no deception, no putting on a waiter uniform. He would simply approach Methuselah directly and let the chips fall where they may.

Murphy says this to himself like it’s some big, brave thing, but he neglects to remember that disguising himself means nothing now because Meth knows that Murphy knows where he lives.

I take it Phillips has never been to South Carolina, because Murphy reasons that Meth “would not come until after 11:00 a.m., when the sun’s rays became warmer.”

Look, if it’s a sunny day in South Carolina, it will not be much warmer at 11 than at 9, and if it is, it might well be too hot for an elderly man with health problems, ‘kay?

Murphy takes a novel and chills on the beach for hours, not even knowing if Meth will show, but he figures the book “would help keep his mind off Iris.”

No, that is not my typo, it is the book’s. In the last chapter, Isis was kicked to the curb, and the editor already forgot her name. And I know it’s just a dumb typo because nobody gave a shit, but I like to imagine that it’s Murphy who has forgotten Isis’s name. “Boy, yeah, I sure do miss that ginger atheist chick, Iris or Eyeball or whatever. Yeah, it’s ripping me apart inside. Wonder if that blonde Swedish babe is wearing some kind of sexy volleyball shorts right this very moment.”

Finally, after noon, Meth shows up with six (yep) bodyguards, and Murphy falls in with only a little fuss from them. It’s time for some exposition, because Phillips has realized that there’s a bunch of stuff Murphy doesn’t know.

So, in a shocking turn of events, Murphy actually lets Meth talk, and doesn’t Wikipedia all over him. So we learn that Meth’s grandpa, the missionary, was the one who did all the research about the biblical artifacts like Noah’s Ark and the writing on the wall.

So it’s actually looking worse for Murphy’s skills than we thought. It’s not that an eccentric billionaire with all the time in the world on his hands knew more about biblical archaeology than the biblical archaeology professor…it’s that the missionary in the 1920s or 30s, a man with no access to databases and the libraries of all universities in the world, a man without any formal training in biblical archaeology, knew where these items were long before Murphy was a gleam in his mama’s eyes.

Makes Murphy look about 592 steps behind, doesn’t it?

Then Meth actually reveals the name of The Seven (TSAN!), that they are “evil people who do not believe in God or the Bible.”

He also catalogues all the stuff they own and control, though the most important thing, in both his and Murphy’s eyes, is that “they are the force behind the rebuilding of the city of Babylon.”

Then Meth/Phillips heads right into offensive territory, adding that The Seven “helped to coordinate the attack of 9/11.”

Yeah, it’s always real sensitive to use a real tragedy where real people died, and say that it was perpetrated by your fictional band of villains, who of course support everything you personally don’t like, like tolerance and political correctness. (And the Antichrist and the United Nations.)

On a sillier note, we learn that the tongueless guy who drives for The Seven is actually Meth’s double agent, which I guess would be kinda cool if I cared.

Meth also references Talon, and when Murphy realizes that Talon works for The Seven, and that Talon killed Laura, he realizes “that he and Methuselah had common enemies in the Seven.”

“Yeah, back when I just thought they were financially backing the Antichrist and participated in 9/11, it was all chill. But now that I know that they might have had a connection to the murder of my wife…well, now I’m angry!”

Then Meth takes a turn into Crazytown, stating that the real reason he wants Murphy to find Aaron’s Rod and the jar of manna is so the Antichrist won’t, because the Antichrist might use the magical items to “feed the starving people of the world” and heal people, and that would be just awful, and part of the plan of The Seven.

Murphy was amazed at all of Methuselah’s knowledge of the Bible.

Mmmm, yes, Murphy, atheists often know plenty about the Bible. Often more than believers do. In fact, all that knowledge is sometimes the reason an atheist became an atheist in the first place.

And when Murphy brings up coming to faith, Meth is a total badass and cuts Murphy off, and I mean cuts him off, stating that their “little games” together will no longer be happening.

As Murphy is escorted back to his car by bodyguards, he actually feels a bit sad about this, and surprisingly, not just because he won’t get free tips about artifacts, and somebody doing most of his work for him anymore. And he actually realizes that he has deprived himself of an ally.

If The Seven (TSAN!) are supposed to be bad guys who helped coordinate the 9/11 attacks, then why are they also helping the Antichrist get these magic Bible artifacts so he can use them to feed the starving and heal people and stuff? That makes no sense, unless we’re somehow supposed to think feeding the starving is bad. I don’t understand fundie Christian “logic” at all.

Feels like Phillips culling characters so that he can put his own much more interesting ones into the long string of books that will obviously follow… (Crickets.)

Keulan: the version of this I’ve heard is that doing good stuff is merely a means of getting people on your side – a classic inversion of what the toxic Christians do themselves. “Here, have an emergency ration pack. Have you considered your relationship with Satan our Dark Lord and Master, who provided this bounty?” Meanwhile leaving people to starve allows them to get closer to God.

“The Antichrist will use it to feed the starving. Whereas, based on your record, you’ll find the thing, fail to get any photos, and then lose it so comprehensively nobody can ever find it again.”

Well, Talon can teleport to people he wants dead at will, even if they only found some doohickey 5 minutes ago, so going undercover won’t do much good.

Of course whether or not Talon will be able to kill to his mark after teleporting to them depends on how often they were named in the story and how far along in the book series it is. Methusalem’s decrepit old ass has a 50/50 chance of overpowering Talon by this point, but add in a few bodyguards and he’ll be vaporised within seconds of his arrival.

Of course, now I’m imagining Meth’s bodyguards are drawn from the ranks of people proven able to defeat Talon: a churchish college girl to draw his attention, and five unathletic teenage boys to fight him.

So Methusalem isn’t a Christian, yet talks about the Seven (TSAN!) as evil people who don’t believe in God and the Bible. I’d say this should be a warning to all Christian writers about what happens when you try to write a sympathetic atheist without ever having had a conversation with one. But this book series is aimed at an audience who hasn’t had one either, so I guess it’ll work out.